It’s been a dramatic week at Pandemonitor, with the long-term worldwide trend of ‘slow improvement’ clearly reversing itself: our cPDI, used to moving in small increments, climbed three point (34 to 37) and the threshold for the top ten jumped from 66 to 74. Interestingly enough, the top ten remained surprisingly stable, with only one change: Mexico, which rode a trend of improving results all the way down to 13th place, was replaced by North Macedonia, a returning favorite from two weeks ago. Other than that, the major changes in the list lie in the changes to its order as well as the extreme leaps in the cPDI itself.
Most impressive is the change at #1: Hungary, which had leapt in pandemic danger last week, took the top spot this week, jumping 8 points in cPDI (79 to 87) due to a high new case rate (228 per week per 100,000) which is rapidly rising (reproduction rate = 1.42). A high test positivity rate (15%) and rising mortality also contribute their share.
The quickest rise in cPDI the top ten this week, however, does not belong to Hungaria but to Bulgaria, which leaped 12 points in cPDI (67 to 79) and landed squarely in fifth place. Bulgaria has been experiencing a constant rise in incidence rates since mid-January, but in the past week it’s picked up speed, with reproduction rate rising to 1.27. The relatively high incidence and the high mortality rate result in a grim forecast from our expected mortality model – 56 deaths per day, i. e. 8 per day per million.
It might be also interesting to note that in the Latin American states on the top ten things are also getting worse – but not as fast: Peru gained only 1 point in cPDI (and fell from first to third place) while Brazil gained 3 points (and fell from 4th to 8th). With the situation starting to deteriorate at other Balkan states (such as Moldova and Serbia in 11th and 12th place), we might have to bid Brazil farewell next time.